Written in
the early 1940’s during Wodehouse’s internment in France and Germany during the
second world war, this novel tells in Bertie Wooster’s first person narrative the
story of his adventures at his uncle’s country home in Steeple Bumpleigh, or in
Wooster’s words “the super-sticky affair of Nobby Hopwood, Stilton
Cheesewright, Florence Craye, my uncle Percy… is one of those imbroglios that
Bertie Wooster believes his biographers will refer to as “The Steeple Bumpleigh
Horror”. The Guardian’s recent review
described the novel as “both an elegy and an encore” – an elegy for a lost
Edwardian Britain, and an encore because this is very familiar ground –
Wodehouse recycled this very limited set of characters and situations
endlessly. “
‘Joy in the
Morning’ (and in my head I keep mixing this title up with ‘Morning Glory’ which
is something entirely different) is a ‘greatest hits’ selection of comedic
situations: the imposed engagement; a blazing country cottage; a nocturnal
confrontation; a fancy-dress ball. The novel also contains an element of
self-justification for Wodehouse’s involvement in what some considered war
crimes, namely broadcasting on German radio from Berlin. “I doubt,” says
Bertie, speaking of the writer Boko Fittleworth, “if you can ever trust an
author not to make an ass of himself.”
Despite my
best intentions I did find myself laughing out loud at some passages. Wooster
is such an idiot. But overall the novel is not a success. It is over-long and
predictable. Wodehouse claimed to work tirelessly on his plots, and farce well
done does require tight plotting in order to be plausible, but the plotting
here is a mess. It depends on people behaving in ways that are more than just
ridiculous but utterly unbelievable: schoolboys burning houses down, successful
businessmen agreeing to conduct private meetings at a fancy dress ball,
policemen leaving their uniforms on the riverbank while taking a dip in the
river, and so on. The resulting comic situations lose a lot of their impact
when they are set up so clumsily – we know Wooster is going to lose an
important birthday gift brooch, that Jeeves is going to come up with a cunning
plan to rescue the situation, that the imposed engagement will fade away by the
end
Wodehouse
may have been a collaborator, and may have romanticised a lost Britain that
depended on a rigid class system that virtually enslaved the working class to
preserve the privilege of a small minority, but he could turn a phrase, for example
“There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a
mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action.”
Wodehouse is
adept at using the gap between Wooster’s weaknesses, his village idiot view of the
world and reality, to comic effect; many of them are having an affectionate nod
towards Shakespeare:
“It was one of those cases where you approve
the broad, general principle of an idea but can't help being in a bit of a
twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this
to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.”
“She came
leaping towards me, like Lady Macbeth coming to get first-hand news from the
guest-room.”
“You can't
go by what a girl says, when she's giving you the devil for making a chump of
yourself. It's like Shakespeare. Sounds well, but doesn't mean anything.”
The bromance
between Wooster and Jeeves is as strong as ever, and even in this strangely
sexless world, in which all a chap ever wants is to avoid being ensnared by an
eligible young woman (what possible reason could Wooster have for not wanting
to get married or be involved with any of the women who circle around him?) is quite
touching. Jeeves and Wooster are only going to be apart for a few hours, but
still say a tearful goodbye:
“We
part, then, for the nonce, do we?'
'I fear so, sir.'
'You take the high road, and self
taking the low road, as it were?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I shall miss you, Jeeves.'
'Thank you, sir.''Who was that chap who was always beefing about gazelles?'
'The poet Moore, sir. He complained that he had never nursed a dear gazelle, to glad him with its soft black eye, but when it came to know him well, it was sure to die.'
'It's the same with me. I am a gazelle short. You don't mind me alluding to you as a gazelle, Jeeves?'
'Not at all, sir.”
No comments:
Post a Comment